


Hands

by anactoriatalksback



Series: Dunn's Anatomy [2]
Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Brief mention of something that's not piss kink but not....NOT piss kink, Demisexuality, Established Relationship, Failed erotic tape attempt, Finger Sucking, M/M, Masturbation, Misuse of Freud, Misuse of binary, Specifically demisexual Richard Hendricks, Successful erotic tape attempt, he knows what he did, like a lot of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 14:57:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15075602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anactoriatalksback/pseuds/anactoriatalksback
Summary: In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Eighteen, Richard Hendricks, Esquire, Chief Executive Officer of Pied Piper, starts keeping a dream journal.He does this because in the race between his infrequent erection and a recalcitrant webcam, his erection wins. Or loses. Refuses to cooperate, anyway.





	Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I'm not demisexual. I've tried to be respectful, but if I've gotten something badly or irresponsibly wrong, let me know.

_“Man is the most intelligent of the animals and so, also, hands are the instruments most suitable for an intelligent animal.”_

\- Galenus

* * *

 

In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Eighteen, Richard Hendricks, Esquire, Chief Executive Officer of Pied Piper, starts keeping a dream journal.

He does this because in the race between his infrequent erection and a recalcitrant webcam, his erection wins. Or loses. Refuses to cooperate, anyway. He’s never liked the things. (Yes, that applies to both erections and webcams).

Okay, that’s not precisely true about erections. Richard’s only jaundiced about his own. Jared’s, on the other hand….

Jared’s is…

Jared’s is…elegant. Vulnerable. Graceful.

Which Richard now knows, because Jared has given him evidence that Richard can store, and keep, and pore over, and rewind, and fast-forward (that never happens, but it’s nice to know the option exists), and analyse, and obsess over.

Richard’s always preferred recordings to live shows, but it’s not a replacement in this case. Not even remotely.

 It’s…it’s a textbook, is what it is.

A primer. A manual. A codex.

Which Richard realised early on that he desperately needs because his boyfriend (boyfriend!) is a nervous giraffe with a question-mark for a spine and a terrifying history and life-altering ears.

And impractically huge, implausibly blue eyes.

And wrists of heartbreaking delicacy.

And nipples of a very precise, singular pink that Richard spent hours googling and matching against colour charts when Jared took off his shirt once and Richard had to lock himself up in the closet with his laptop because there’s a lot there and after that Jared’s kept his shirt on which Richard regrets but is also thankful for because he needs to process.

So yes. All in all, it’s…work.

Not…it’s not that Richard resents it (above and beyond, y’know, the galactic humiliation of his bug-eyed, squirming, futile, helpless everything where Jared is concerned), but…yeah.

There are benefits, though.

Benefits like being allowed to look, unblinkingly, at Jared through the glass partition between his office and Jared’s desk. And being allowed to meet Jared’s own searchlight gaze for as long as he’s able. Fuck you, Dinesh and Gilfoyle and your unnecessarily-graphic retching sounds, it’s not Richard’s fault that he’s managed to acquire a boyfriend through what he’s the first to admit is sheer dumb luck, maybe if you tried actually saying what you actually felt without 1500000000000000 layers of passive-aggression, aggressive-aggression, racism and hostility, by now you’d be fucking each other like you’re so clearly gagging to do.

Anyway. Benefits.

Benefits like tugging at Jared’s giant thumb with his pinkie, wrapping said pinkie around said thumb and kinda just…sitting. Benefits like feeling the light pull as the anchor seats itself in the deep, right there in his heart.

Benefits like curling up in Jared’s nice bed, with his nice googol-threadcount Actual Adult Person sheets, with Jared wrapped around him. Benefits like nuzzling the fine blue vein in Jared’s pale wrist, for hours on end. Benefits like mapping the whorls and patterns on Jared’s palm, his fingers, like he’s T. E. Lawrence riding across Wadi Rum, like Jared’s hands are his own virgin petrified sand dunes, his own undiscovered country, whose rises and falls and topography are Richard’s and Richard’s alone.

Benefits like inhaling, gently, the textures and the smells of Fresh-From-Sleep Jared Hands versus Fresh-From-Baking-Gluten-Free-Waffles Jared Hands versus Fresh-From-Wrapping-Around-Mug-of-Tea Jared Hands versus Just-Peed Jared Hands. Which, yes, okay. But now Richard knows, all right? Also Jared looked puzzled and then Richard’s brain was a solid mass of _fuckfuckfuckyou’retoomuchforhimofcourseyouareyouidiotidiot_ idiot but then Richard got it together and explained about how it’s all data, and he needs data, all the data, all the Jared data and Jared ducked his head with a coy little smirk.

Anyway. So.

Benefits like feeling a very specific pressure against his lower back, wriggling against it, hearing Jared swallow a little gasp that goes straight to Richard’s…hmmm, and nerving himself to say ‘Is. Are you…hard, Jared?’

‘I…’ Jared starts, looks away, Richard can feel his cheek moving against the back of his neck, then his thin chest moving in and out against his back. Deep breaths. ‘You don’t…please, Richard, I’m sorry, you don’t…’

‘Stop it’, says Richard, and clutches at Jared’s hand as he recoils. ‘No. Not that. The – you don’t have to. It’s not a….’

‘I’m sorry, Richard’, says Jared again, and Richard never wants to hear that voice again, that contrite loyal scramble to beat out flames that are not of his doing, the aching eagerness to please, to fix, to put right.

Richard lifts Jared’s hands to his lips. Jared’s been doing the dishes, he thinks, and he takes in a deep lungful of Dawn liquid and Jared’s nice moisturiser. In, out, while Jared settles.

‘You did’, he says, into Jared’s knuckles, but he hopes Jared can hear, ‘nothing wrong.’

‘Richard’, says Jared, ‘please, I don’t want you to think you have to, to do, or, or’

‘Do you’ says Richard ‘j-jack off?’ He buries his face in Jared’s hands. ‘To – when you – do you think about me when - ’

‘Richard’ breathes Jared. Richard squirms closer, holds Jared’s hand tighter. ‘I - ’ Jared coughs. ‘I – I think about you, sometimes, but - ’

But? But what? Does Jared not - ? Is Richard not, not worth jacking off to?

Richard twists his head around to stare at Jared, whose cheeks are very pink. ‘I – Richard, I don’t. Usually. Very often.’

Richard keeps staring. Jared continues, ‘I – it’s – decadent, Richard, it’s – indulgent, to, to, when nobody else’s pleasure is - ’ and he blushes, it’s fucking _entrancing_ , ‘and I couldn’t, I couldn’t _sully_ you with - ’

‘But you could’, says Richard, ‘if you – if – I’m – you – it’s not like I’m - ’ and he trails off, staring miserably at Jared.

‘Richard’, says Jared, ‘oh how could you think such a thing, darling, I ache for you, I, I can’t believe you’re real, I, I dream about you - ’ he catches himself and rushes on, ‘but, but Richard, please, you mustn’t think I’m making any, any demands, you don’t need to, there’s no obligation, I promise, I - ’

‘Would you do it’, says Richard, ‘if I’ he swallows, ‘if I asked you?’ He shuts his eyes, curls over Jared’s hand. Breathes out. ‘Would you – show me?’

There’s a pause, a long pause where Richard can feel Jared’s breath, carefully measured, on the back of his neck. He’s about to apologise, to scramble up, hurl himself out of the room and possibly into passing traffic, when he hears Jared’s voice, saying with eerie calm ‘Is – is that what you want?’

Richard nods, shakily, thumb pressing into Jared’s wrist.

There’s another silence, and then Richard can feel Jared’s other hand, fingertips brushing down his neck. ‘Of course.’

Richard pushes himself up. Turns around, slowly, to face Jared. Jared whose colour is fluctuating, whose eyes are huge in his face.

‘Is this’ says Richard, ‘Jared, is this – is this okay? Are you –‘

Jared nods, slowly. Lets out a long breath. Unfolds his long legs and gets out of bed.

‘Wh- what - ’

Jared slides his thumbs beneath the waistband of his boxers. Pushes them down, slowly, past his narrow hips, eyes never leaving Richard’s.

Richard looks down, wildly, as the prim plaid descends. His eyes snag on Jared’s hipbones, gleaming in the half-light of the bedroom. He’s felt them before, but here – naked, fragile, exquisitely, terrifyingly breakable – he feels a panicked, furious protectiveness.

His eyes fly up to Jared’s, very wide and very blue. ‘Richard, are you – is this - ’

Richard nods. Reaches out with one trembling hand. Pats the coverlet in front of him.

Jared sits down, slowly. Richard takes in a breath. ‘Sh-show me.’

Jared nods. Reaches for his bedside drawer. Rummages and pulls out a small bottle which he pours out onto his fingers. Rubs them gently.

Reaches down.

Richard’s eyes follow Jared’s hand as it slips down, down, down…but fly up at Jared’s carefully-controlled breath out.

Jared’s eyes are on Richard, wide and dark. His eyelashes are trembling and the pink’s rising in his cheeks.

Richard swallows. _Look down_ , he tells himself, _maybe you’ll be able to, to see the trick of it, to see what he does, how he moves, maybe you can learn, maybe, maybe one day you can, can give this to him, look, look, you’re_ missing _it_.

But Jared’s eyes, his eyes, the pupils dilating before Richard’s like his own private twin sunrises, staring at Richard like he has the answer, like he _is_ the answer, like he’s all Jared’s ever wanted.

Richard finds he’s leaning forward, just a little. He can feel the cliff-edge crumble beneath his toes. _Further_ , he thinks, _further. But not so far that you can’t see, you have to see, you have to see…_

Jared’s hand is moving a little faster, Richard can see Jared’s shoulder move out of the corner of his eye, and his eyes are dragging shut, and Richard can feel the threads that bind him loosen, one by one.

‘Eyes’, he says, and both he and Jared jolt at the sharpness of his voice in the bedroom. ‘Jared. Eyes open. I need to - ’

Jared nods, slowly. His eyes flutter open. Open and staring, but Richard can see it, they’re turned inwards now, looking into Jared’s own private landscapes, his own world.

And Richard feels it, in his heart, a raking claw of loneliness and envy and gluttony. _What is it, what do you see, where do you go, tell me, tell me, take me with you, this place I’ve never seen, let me in, maybe if I visit once I’ll be allowed again_.

‘What do you’, he says, ‘Jared, what are you thinking about?’

Jared will tell him, he knows, Jared let him into his home, he gave up his own bedroom for him, Jared will make space for him in his own private country, Jared will take him in, and then Richard will know.

Jared’s eyes focus on Richard, he can feel Jared come back to him. Jared licks his lips, once, delicately. ‘I - ’

‘Tell me’, says Richard, whatever it is, he doesn’t care, _take me with you, let me in, let me in_.

Jared’s looking at Richard, his gaze pinning him. ‘You.’

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Richard shivers. ‘What – what are you thinking?’

Jared hesitates. ‘It – Richard, I don’t want to - ’

‘Tell me’, says Richard, leaning forward, ‘please.’

Jared looks a little unsure, but says ‘I – at TechCrunch, all those years ago? I was – I was crying, and you told me not to?’

Richard nods. Jared continues ‘You – you bit your lip. You looked up at me. I – I’ve always - ’ and there’s a little breath out.

Richard cocks his head. Reaches for his own bottom lip with his teeth – he has to drag precious neurons away from contemplating Jared’s face to do it, it’s like operating a crane while drunk, Jesus – and looks up at Jared through his lashes. ‘Like – like this?’

‘Oh’, says Jared. ‘Oh, Richard, oh yes, _yes_ , like that, just like that.’

‘You liked that?’, asks Richard, he’s reaching for it, he’s so hungry, tell me, tell me.

‘Yes’, says Jared. ‘I – oh yes, yes, Richard, _yes_.’

‘What else’, says Richard, ‘what else do you - ’

‘Richard, I don’t want you to think I - ’

‘Tell me’, says Richard, biting his lip. Jared whimpers. ‘Darling, that’s – that’s unfair, you - ’

‘Tell me.’

Jared takes in a long breath. His eyes flutter shut, then slam open obediently. He says ‘I – when you – when we – we were – talking to the, the stallion, the quisling, the Judas? You, you were so, so steely, Richard, so impassive, so immovable, so – oh, oh I, I thought, I wondered what it would be like to, to see that look – directed at me.’ He licks his lips, once, before continuing ‘to – if I were, were on my – my knees, if I could – if you’d let me – take you in my mouth, let me – oh, Richard, let me _serve_ you, let me worship you, have your, your hands in my hair, watch me, move me, have me how you wanted, oh - ’ he ends on a gasp, cheeks bright red, the soft _thlap-thlap_ of his hand on his cock faster and faster now.

Richard’s own cheeks are hot, he can feel them. ‘I – fuck, Jared.’ He swallows. ‘What else?’

Jared’s red down to his neck now, oh lovely, lovely, ‘I – sometimes I – I’m, I’m, I’m on, on the conference room table, t-tied down, and, and you’re, you’re talking to, to investors, and, and you’re, you’re running your hands over me, just – like I’m incidental, Richard, like I’m _furniture_ , oh, and everyone, everyone can, can see, I’m right there, it’s, it’s - ’

This….does not sound like Richard. Like, at all. Richard can feel the sweat prickle under his palms anyway.

‘I sound hot’, he says, and wants – immediately – to die. But then Jared looks at him and nods, simply.

‘Not as hot as the real thing’, he whispers, and the words settle in Richard’s heart, sinking lower, lower, into his gut, down to his groin.

‘I would’, says Richard, and swallows, ‘I would never – you’re not furniture, Jared, I could never – t-treat you like - ’

Jared blushes, down to his chest, brushes of red disappearing below the neck of his t-shirt. ‘Oh, Captain, I - ’ he expels his breath on a long sigh. ‘Richard? May I - ?’

May Jared – oh. Jared’s pupils are blown, his breathing is harsh and his thin shoulder’s moving very rapidly.

 _It’s too soon_ , he’s screaming inside, _I haven’t had time, I haven’t, haven’t memorised, and there’s so much – your cock, your hips, the movement of your hand – that I didn’t, I couldn’t…_

Jared’s stilled, his eyes on Richard’s face. _You could keep him like this_ , his brain supplies, _look at him, he’ll stay, like a sentinel, like a dog, he’s yours, he’ll stay while you look, and learn, and lick, and nuzzle, as long as it takes, forever if he has to, whatever it costs him, you could, you could…_

Jared’s eyes are wide, fearful almost. Richard swallows. ‘Come’, he says, and ‘c-come for me’ on a rush before he thinks better of it.

‘Oh _thank_ you’ says Jared, and Richard can hear the movement of his hand on his cock, fasterfasterfaster, watches his friend’s eyes go rapt and staring, watches his mouth go slack, watches him slump forward, eyes shutting (okay, Richard’ll allow it), hears the laboured rasp of his breath.

Richard thinks, _his hand_.

And he says ‘I – I wanna – give me your hand, Jared.’

Jared’s eyes open. He stares at Richard and nods, slowly. He lifts his hand and Richard takes his wrist.

Jared’s hand is wet. Sticky with his release. _New one for me_ , thinks Richard, and thrills. He brings Jared’s fingers to his nose and sniffs, delicately. Lets his tongue peep out, just the tip, flicking against Jared’s index finger.

Salty, he thinks, a little acrid. Warm, but cooling fast. Coating his tongue as he swallows Jared’s fingers, one after the other, letting his tongue run between the little whorls on the pads, industriously swabbing and swiping, ferreting out every last morsel, _learn this, memorise this, keep this._

He hears a shuddering gasp. ‘ _Richard_ ’.

Richard lifts his eyes to Jared, his fingers still in his mouth. Jared shivers. Opens his mouth and shuts it. His eyes are still very dark. ‘Richard, I – oh, Captain, may I - ?’ and he gestures downwards with his other hand.

Richard glances down. At his own semi, pressing against his thigh.

 _Oh_ , he thinks vaguely. _That happened._

Jared bends in a little closer. ‘Richard?’

 _Stop_ , thinks Richard, a little irritated, _I have your come on my tongue and I need to google the colour of your irises just before you come and your hands feel different when they’re covered in your come and I need to think, Goddammit, I need to analyse, I need to_ catalogue _, I need – my library, Jared, my Jared Library, you can’t, I can’t just…._

And then he thinks _his hand_. _It’ll taste different. When I. My come. On his hand. My taste and his. Together._

_New one for me._

He lets Jared’s fingers fall from his mouth with a soft, wet sound. ‘O – okay.’

Jared’s eyes widen and he shuffles closer – closer, till their knees touch. Richard shivers lightly.

‘Is this all right?’

Richard nods, sucking in his breath in a gasp as Jared’s fingers brush – lightly, tentatively – over the bulge in his pyjamas.

‘Richard? Are you - ’

‘Fine’, says Richard, and he has to say it sharply because _oh_. Long, delicate fingers – he can feel the shapes of the tips, how well he knows them – tracing careful, prim patterns, Jared’s ring finger, the one where the swirls seem to go counterclockwise and then abruptly change their minds at the last minute, they’ll smell of Dawn liquid and Jared’s come and…

 _New one for me_.

‘Richard? Is this all right?’

So polite, he thinks, so…so mannerly. Waiting to be given permission, waiting to be let in.

He nods, shakily. The fingers are back now, bolder, feeling more firmly for the shape of Richard through his pyjamas. Richard can feel his eyes shut, and he’s shrieking at himself _You’re_ missing _it_ , but just, he needs to concentrate, to feel.

 _The flicker_ , he thinks, _did I, was I, I normally know when, I watch for it, but it just…did it sneak up on me, is it there, is this what it even is, is this what it’s like?_

‘Jared?’, he says. ‘I – can you – p-put your hand in – ahhhh – inside? My – my pants?’

Jared takes in a breath. Richard drags open his eyes to watch him. ‘Are you sure?’

Richard nods. Holds his breath as Jared carefully, cautiously reaches inside. Screws his eyes shut as warm, long fingers touch him. Claps his own hands over his ears, pay attention, pay attention, if he holds his breath, if he blocks everything else out, can he feel where those long, long fingers begin to slope into the joints, one by one? Feel where the tips are a little spatulate from all the typing Jared does – and oh, God alone knows what Richard’s must be like? Feel them anew, feel them skin to skin a whole other way?

When he comes, he thinks, violently, _Too soon_.

‘Oh, Richard’, says Jared in a hushed tone, ‘oh, _thank_ you.’

‘I want - ’ says Richard, and Jared nods, he doesn’t need to be told twice. He extracts his hand carefully, holds it up to Richard to nuzzle and lick.

 _Not all that different_ , thinks Richard, and the slight disappointment is soon washed away in delight. _Not all that different!_

‘Richard?’, says Jared. ‘Are – darling, are you all right?’

Richard nods, around Jared’s fingers.

But when they get ready for bed, as he watches his friend bend and fold himself into that little shape-of-four he likes when he sleeps, he looks at the bumps of Jared’s spine, at the light swell of his tiny ass, the insistent jut of his hipbones through his soft pyjamas, and he thinks _You missed it_.

And he says ‘Jared? Will you – record yourself? For me?’

Jared looks surprised, but nods. ‘Of course, Richard.’

‘Thank you’, says Richard, and drops down to curl around him.

* * *

 

Next week Richard receives an email from Jared – his personal email. It’s a smiley face, a video attachment and nothing else.

O-okay, he thinks, this is…well.

He finds Jared, busying himself with tea, and sidles up to him.

‘Hey, uh.’

Jared smiles at Richard. ‘Hello, Richard. How can I help you?’

‘You already’ said Richard. ‘Thank you. For the, uh.’ He blushes.

‘Oh, Richard’, says Jared, a little pink himself, ‘it was nothing, really. You asked if I could, and who am I to say no to - ’

‘No, I mean, but Jared’, and Richard can feel his cheeks get hot, ‘like – it’s kinda – a lot to….’

‘No, Richard’, says Jared, ‘I promise you, to think you would honour me so, Captain, I - ’

‘Honour? Jared, I - ’

‘With something so domestic, Richard, so intimate - ’

And Richard’s ears yank at him. ‘Jared?’ says Richard. ‘What did you send me?’

Jared blinks. ‘Did you not - ’

Richard shakes his head. ‘What did you send me?’

Jared’s eyes are wide. He looks puzzled and a little worried. ‘I sent you video of me filling teabags, Richard.’

It’s Richard’s turn to blink. ‘That’s – that’s not a euphemism, is it?’

Jared shakes his head, offers a tentative smile. Richard shakes his head to clear it. ‘It – what about the. Tea-bags, Jared?’

Jared cocks his head. ‘Well’, he says, ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Whole Foods stopped stocking that Ceylonese/Assamese tea-blend you like?’

Richard has not noticed. Basically none of the words Jared just said rang any sort of personal bell. He doesn’t even like tea especially, he just likes that Jared makes it for him even if the mug stubbornly refuses to retain anything but the most trace smell of his hands, which Richard knows because he got close enough that he burned the tip of his nose that one time.

‘Well’, says Jared, ‘I’m blending it myself.’ He nods encouragingly at Richard. ‘Nothing but the best for my Captain.’

‘Right’, says Richard, ‘but. Tea-bags?’

‘Oh’, says Jared, ‘well, the osmosis and dissipation rates of tetrahedral structures are far superior to other shapes, you see?’

Huh. Richard needs to look into this, maybe the topology has some relevance for that noise-dissipation thing he’s been working on.

‘You’ve, uh. You’ve done your research.’

Jared looks at him in mild reproach. ‘I’m not an animal, Richard. Although’ he says thoughtfully ‘I _was_ briefly raised in a barn.’

‘Shut up’ says Richard, because there it is, that crushing, suffocating weight of _Oh God I like you I like you so much_. He can’t predict it, Jared never gives him any warning, there he is, minding his own business and Jared just throws something out like that and the ground’s plucked out from under Richard, he’s in the middle of the ocean, he’s drowning, sucking in great lungfuls of _This is the best thing how is this who are you why are you even here how are you_ real _who let you out do they know did they ever know_.

Jared tenses, eyes wide, but presumably he’s recognised that this is an _I love you so much it makes me impotently furious_ ‘Shut up’, so he relaxes and smiles. Then he frowns.

‘What did you think I was sending you, Richard?’

Oh God.

‘Nothing’, says Richard, ‘I should - ’

‘Richard?’

Richard winces. Screws his eyes shut. Says ‘youjackingoff’ very rapidly. Opens his eyes with trepidation to find Jared staring at him.

 _Yeah_ , thinks Richard bleakly, _your boyfriend is a pervert who wants you to jack off for him while he does…oh who even knows? Fucking…gloats over it and, and, and, polishes the thought like a jeweller, can’t even respond in kind because his boner’s like Halley’s Fucking Comet, and just…._

‘Oh’, says Jared, pink-cheeked.

‘You don’t have to’, says Richard, ‘it was a dumb idea, you don’t, it’s just, you were so fucking beautiful, I couldn’t see it all, there wasn’t time, and I – but you don’t have to, please, it was, was, you don’t, I’m sorry, it was…’

And then Jared puts his hand next to Richard’s. Not touching, just…there, if Richard wants to…

And Richard watches his own hand move, slowly, towards his friend’s, seemingly of its own volition. Watches his pinkie reach out and tug at Jared’s thumb.

Sighs as the anchor splashes into the waves.

‘I’d be honoured’, says Jared.

That night, Richard fires up the video Jared sent him. The teabag thing. Which…Richard still doesn’t fully understand, but feels like he doesn’t have to to…

Y’know.

Appreciate it.

He’s right. The camera’s trained on Jared, in his nice well-lit intuitively laid-out kitchen, with his nice spice rack behind him (no cilantro, of course), and two nice shallow bowls in front of him, and a taller cylindrical something filled with distressingly foreskin-esque scraps of material that Richard really, sincerely hopes are tea-bags waiting to be filled.

And Jared has his little mini-shovels in each bowl, and a tiny gleaming weighing scale, and his fingers are very long and very pale against the tea, and he’s wearing his Ken Burns Vietnam War apron, which, why is there even such a thing, and he’s murmuring about the crucial importance of getting the balance just right (‘I tried a 63% - 37% Ceylonese/Assamese blend once, Richard, do you remember? Oh, your poor stomach, darling, I gave myself a stern talking to, then I did some reading and Dinesh and Gilfoyle told me about the Fibonacci Sequence and they worked out a Taylor’s Approximation and you know, Richard, I really do think the world of them, because I think that’s very nearly the solution’), and he’s so careful and attentive and reverent and the whole thing’s so, so fucking _numinous_ , it…

Richard finds that he’s leaning forward, and that his clothes are kinda. Hot. And tight. And.

Oh, hello, Halley’s Comet.

And then Richard has a brilliant idea.

Jared, he thinks, Jared deserves to, to see. Richard will show him.

 _Yes_.

He reaches in and tugs at himself, zooming in on Jared’s hands (and yes also maybe the Ken Burns apron Richard will ask himself about that later), and… erect, right? Erect is the best?

He switches on his webcam and hits ‘record’.

‘Jared’, he says, ‘I. uh. I got something. For you.’

And moves the screen down to get a bird’s-eye view of – is that? – Richard doesn’t know what the best angle is. Is it better from below? Marlboro man style? Which, I mean, probably? But that would involve, like, getting out of bed, and standing up, and manouevring the thing, and Richard looks at his boner and decides not to push his luck.

So Richard keeps the webcam on what he’s presuming is his boner, and applies pressure. Chases any and all weirdly persistent thoughts of all the underwhelming porn he’s ever watched, that one time he saw a clown walk fully-clothed into a swimming pool at a kids’ party he wasn’t supposed to be at except there were two Richards in his class and the kid’s mom made a mistake, and oh shit Kyle (or Brad) in that _Student Body_ porno or whatever the fuck it was called, they were really fucking bad actors like they were really bad how does anyone get turned on by this shit what is even…

And drags himself back to Jared. Jared’s eyes, his ears, his Ken Burns apron which does he have a collection of those? Where does he even get them? Does Jared, like, make a habit of watching harrowing documentaries and then collecting, like, merchandise? What else does he have? Civil War Box-Set oven gloves? Ken Burns’ Jazz mouse-pads? What even…

But there he is, with his spoon collection and his Le Creuset ramekins and his slender hands and his Patagonia fleeces and…

‘This programme’ his computer informs him ‘has encountered an unexpected error and needs to close. Click ‘OK’ to continue.’

..What.

‘Fucking….not now, you stupid fucking thing.’

‘Click ‘OK’ to continue.’

‘Goddammit, can you just…’

‘Click ‘OK’ to continue.’

Richard fumbles furiously at the computer with one hand, still plying himself with the other mechanically, and two things simultaneously happen:

  1. The programme, as promised, restarts.
  2. Richard, on the other hand, finishes.



_‘Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.’_

Richard slumps back, dispirited. It doesn’t help that when he opens his email there’s a video from Jared of him jerking off. I mean, Richard knows there’s like a uranium mine of data in there for him later, but now? Not even the barest, most exhausted flicker.

 _Two non-friction-related boners in one week_ , thinks Richard, _maybe I’ve broken it_.

In the meantime, Richard has a problem. His boyfriend’s given him video of doing something rapturously, exquisitely intimate.

And also of him jerking off.

And when Richard tried to reciprocate – well, it didn’t go well. Hasn’t gone well when he’s tried again.

What Richard needs – what his boyfriend deserves – is…well, Jared told Richard, right, what he was thinking about when he was jacking off? He let him into his _head_. Richard needs something like that.

But it’s not like. I mean, Richard will tell basically anyone who’ll listen what’s in his head, it’s not….everyone tells him that’s…basically the problem.

And, more to the point, not a problem unique to Jared.

What is in Richard’s head that nobody knows that he could give to Jared?

And then it hits him.

Oh this is brilliant.

This will work.

Oh, Hendricks, you are _killing_ it, baby.

* * *

 

The next morning, Richard opens up a new file on his computer entitled ‘Richard Hendricks: Dream Log #001.’

 _Last night_ , he writes, _there was a cardboard box_.

That’s.

Okay.

Yes, not the most.

Richard spends a basically fruitless hour with Freud’s _Die Traumdeutung_ , talks himself out of adding a note saying maybe the dream means he wants to be in the womb or something, saves and logs out.

The rest are…well, at least ‘showing up naked to class’ is a classic, and ‘Naked and also there’s a toothless hobo dipping fingers into congealing oatmeal’ is….more….interesting?

At least there’s one kinda nice one where it’s just Jared brushing his hair? Richard doesn’t bother looking up the interpretation for that one, there’ll be at least one that’ll upset him, he doesn’t trust that Austrian pervert, his read on the oatmeal dream made Richard crawl into bed for an hour.

Richard mails Jared his dream journal and gets on with work. They’re filing a patent – Richard’s hunch about the topology of tetrahedra being useful for loss dissipation was at least partially correct – and they’ve got a lot to do.

Jared bursts into his office. He’s got his fist jammed into his mouth, and his eyes are huge and sparkling, and his ears – his _ears_ – are quivering, and oh Hendricks take a fucking _bow_. Dream journal, baby.

‘Yeah, Jared?’ he says, trying for a nonchalant lean. ‘Something I can help you with?’

Jared sniffles. Tries to speak. Can’t seem to.

‘He’s having a stroke’ says Gilfoyle, ‘because the CEO of this company is a giant fucking _vagina_ who named an invention after his boyfriend.’

Jared sniffles again. Stares at Richard. Manages to say ‘I – I didn’t know, you see, I - ’

‘Because Richard thought he was being clever’ says Dinesh ‘writing it in binary.’

‘Binary.’

‘I mean, have some self-respect, Richard.’

‘Yeah, if you’re going to go all Language of Flowers on us, step up your fucking _game_ , dude.’

‘Though, I mean, if binary stumped Jared…’

‘Look at him, though. He wasn’t even planning to tell Sarah, Plain and Tall. Were you, Dick?’

‘Oh God that’s even worse.’

‘Get out’, says Richard, with very little hope of being listened to. But Dinesh and Gilfoyle leave with one final look of ineffable scorn over their shoulders.

Jared stares at him, hand splayed out over his chest. ‘I – oh, Richard, that you would - that you would honour me so, I, I don’t _deserve_ you, darling, I sometimes feel like it’s the last scene in the Little Match Girl and soon the frost will come to claim me, I - ’

‘But’, says Richard, no longer able to contain himself, ‘but, Jared, the dream journal. What did you think of the dream journal?’

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the wonderful and talented joycecarolnotes and Neurofancier for reading and cheerleading. 
> 
> Also, the lovely joycecarolnotes and I have clearly had some sort of morphic resonance where we both decided that what the world needed was Richard wanting sex tapes of Jared, and Jared making cosy domestic videos.
> 
> Also also, I knew I'd forgotten something, which was to credit the mighty Neurofancier for the idea of Jared filling in tea-bags! I suck, I suck, I suck.
> 
> If you like, come yell with me about these idiots on itsevidentvery dot tumblr dot com.


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